For a part time tank trying to get somewhat near block-capped, what do I shoot for? As much CTC as possible or higher avoidace? To me, the H VP legs look pretty superior to the JP legs which everyone says are the best 346 pair out there.

Well, for starters it's 0.25*1.05=0.2625, or 26.25% parry rating per point of Strength. Not that that changes much.

I prefer to go with "pure" tank gear personally, but if you can get your hands on the heroic VP legs they're a decent substitute.

I tend to look at total "survivability" rating, i.e. mastery+avoidance, rather than combat table coverage. LotWW has a sum of 377 effective rating (225+152), while the GoS have 408 plus ~30 more stamina pre-kings. On the other hand, LotWW's rating comes in a much more attractive form. I'd call it a toss-up, but I use the tier tanking legs rather than the ret ones, so what do I know?

We are still closing in on block cap pretty early. I'm at 82%, and I still have sizable upgrades coming in CTC coverage.

With using just 359 gear, I can crank my CTC up to 89.37% while wearing a stamina trinket, or 93.39% wearing double mastery trinkets. That is pretty close to cap in the first tier.

Quick Edit.

I just did a check and if you sold your soul to Mastery in 372 gear (bis for mastery in every slot between 359/372) you can get to 99.05% CTC with 155k unbuffed HP. Probably not enough HP for most things Heroic Content wise, but oh holy crap. (this is also picking up all socket bonuses. )

Quick Edit 2. Under the same scenario, a BS/JC could get to 101.07

Quick Edit 3. Toss in the Sinestra neck, and you can then get to 102.1

sherck wrote:Nope, really did think that HS provided 10% chance to block rather than raising the amount blocked. Apparently, I need to read a little closer.

Thanks for pointing that out to me. I was wondering why the heck tanks were approaching block cap in the first tier of the xpac.

Cheers,

For the record, HS was changed at 4.0.3a to be 10% more damage blocked rather than 10% higher chance to block.

But yeah, stacking Mastery like it's not going out of style and it's very possible to get close to full CTC... I'm nowhere close to it, but then again I really only started raiding full time again about six weeks ago, and the drops I've gotten haven't increased my numbers all that much.

sherck wrote:Nope, really did think that HS provided 10% chance to block rather than raising the amount blocked. Apparently, I need to read a little closer.

Thanks for pointing that out to me. I was wondering why the heck tanks were approaching block cap in the first tier of the xpac.

Cheers,

For the record, HS was changed at 4.0.3a to be 10% more damage blocked rather than 10% higher chance to block.

But yeah, stacking Mastery like it's not going out of style and it's very possible to get close to full CTC... I'm nowhere close to it, but then again I really only started raiding full time again about six weeks ago, and the drops I've gotten haven't increased my numbers all that much.

Factor in ~3% avoidance from raid buffs and 315 additional mastery rating from food/elixir and it is easily possible to push your CTC past 102.4%. There are a few key pieces that give you giant chunks of mastery (or a stat that you can reforge into mastery) such as the Atramedes legs, Ascendant Council gloves, and ofc double mastery trinkets.

Unbuffed health is 152,463 and that seems like more than enough for the normal raids that I am on (10/12).I made the decision recently to go with pure +40 Mastery gems instead of the hybrid +20/+30 Mastery/Stamina gems.So I lost 3,500 health doing that. But it seems like a non issue.

It looks like CTC cap will be reached with mostly 372 gear and raid buffs. And you only need to sacrafice about 6%-7% CTC coverage to get Hit at 8% and Expertise soft cap.

Mastery food and pot can get you to blockcap in 359 gear (although come to think, I'm also using JC gems); I use my set pretty extensively. I'm not certain where the tradeoff is between stam and perma 40% phys damage redux is, exactly, but I'm wearing it for more and more fights.